Alfa awus036nh weak tx power. Is their a way to adjust?

[D.B. Cooper]

I am running the rt2800 driver with the Alfa awus036nh wifi adapter. Injection and monitoring work great.However, my range is limited to less than that of my stock internal wireless card and iwconfig shows that it's txpower = 6dBm which seems very low.

I have tried several methods to adjust, but most have been for other drivers...
Is adjustment of txpower supported in rt2800?

[Archangel-Amael]

The following two command should be looked at.
# man iwpriv
# man iwconfig

[nitroglico]

Something like this happened with me, but my case is worst..

My alfa adapter doesnt have tx power anymore. It just connects when below 1 meter range from my AP!! It happens in BT or windows, it seems like a hardware issue.

I dont know what happened, but all of a sudden my adapter become very weak in it tx signal.

The Rx signal is great, and works very well, but it is useless to try connect from more than 1 meter range..

Do u know what is it?

[sharn]

wow ...Alfa awus036nh works???...actually i heard that it is not supported by BACKTRACK out of box...can u tell me how did u made it work?,,plz

[D.B. Cooper]

I have tried iwpriv and the iwconfig methods of setting txpower.It seem that they are not supported with the rt2800usb driver. However, I performed a few informal tests against the built-in wireless adapter and it appears that the Alfa is stronger in Tx and Rx. This is in spite of the fact that iwconfig returns a value of 6dBm for the Alfa and 20dBm for the built-in atheros based adapter.

I tried a few methods found on the net to get the awus036nh working without tradeoffs and found this the other day (near end of page):
Please Help! With AWUS036NH RT2800 Driver Under uNetBootin USB BackTrack 4f

I is a precompiled kernel image and header by Jusic at the german wardriving forums. Injection and Monitoring work great and the added bonus is that you can also surf the net with the rt2800usb driver. It updates the kernel to 2.6.33

[Net2010]

i get today my new AWUS036NH after testing i see is Tx-Power=6 dBm is normal? plz any help

root@bt:~# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=6 dBm
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on

mon0      IEEE 802.11bgn  Mode:Monitor  Tx-Power=6 dBm
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off 

[Archangel-Amael]

Well what did your research tell you?

[Net2010]

Well what did your research tell you?

ty for replay the problem when i check my AWUS036N i see the Tx-Power=27 default and for my new one AWUS036NH it have Tx-Power=6 is ok? or i need to edit my txpower?

[spiers]

I have tried iwpriv and the iwconfig methods of setting txpower.It seem that they are not supported with the rt2800usb driver. However, I performed a few informal tests against the built-in wireless adapter and it appears that the Alfa is stronger in Tx and Rx. This is in spite of the fact that iwconfig returns a value of 6dBm for the Alfa and 20dBm for the built-in atheros based adapter.

I tried a few methods found on the net to get the awus036nh working without tradeoffs and found this the other day (near end of page):
Please Help! With AWUS036NH RT2800 Driver Under uNetBootin USB BackTrack 4f

I is a precompiled kernel image and header by Jusic at the german wardriving forums. Injection and Monitoring work great and the added bonus is that you can also surf the net with the rt2800usb driver. It updates the kernel to 2.6.33

Did you manage to increase the TX value?

Im using the 2800usb drivers and trying to set highpower using iwpriv and tried changing the txvalue using iwconfig and both failed. The first with no private ioctls error and the second invalid argument error.

I also tried the steps on this page, changing the 18187 to 2800 but that didnt work either.
Tutorial: Improve TX power by changing the CRDA Regulatory Domain on Ubuntu

I thought BT4 R2 would have worked with the NH card out of the box but that isnt the case.
Packet Injection works with the 2800usb driver though.

How much 'range' is lost by having tx value 4-8 rather than 30?

Another point is using iwpriv channel or frequency only g channels are displayed. No N channels are displayed, this is still the case after changing the reg set value to different countries.

Is this just a limitation of the 2800 driver?

[RaderCad]

How much 'range' is lost by having tx value 4-8 rather than 30?

?

Now we are getting into RADIO theory realm.

In my research (years) I have found a simple rule of thumb for the 2.4 to 2.5 gHz (microwave) bandwidth. As a starting point, 27 dBi (at the antenna) will get you out to 450 meters at 11Mb/s guaranteed (clear air no obstructions.) For every 3dBi added to that you get an effective doubling of the range. For every 3 dBi subtracted you get 1/2 the range. It is exponential, getting extra power is also exponential in the $ compartment. Being that this is the microwave band width the radiation danger with power boosting is also exponential.

Now remember your antenna is 5 dBi or better added to 6 from the adapter you are now up to 11dBi. 27 - 11 = 16. 16 / 3 = 5.33 halvings or in 'range terms' something around 14 to 20 meters (clear air no obstructions.) Actual range varies due to atmospheric pressure and humidity but you get the picture (you are really limited.) Depending on the receiving sensitivity of the hot spot or hub, you can be further away.

Note: The advertised ratings or watts from the ALFA's is not what you get. Search for the FCC reviews of all the ALFA's real power output without the antenna.